– From Planes To Trains: TSA Expands Spot Searches To Union Station (CBS News, Dec. 27, 2011):
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — An all-too-familiar sight at LAX and the rest of the nation’s airports will soon be coming to the city’s busiest train station.
KNX 1070?s Pete Demetriou reports rail passengers have started seeing Transportation Security Administration on patrol at Union Station on a more frequent basis.
As many as 25 VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention & Response) teams began patrolling train stations nationwide last summer conducting an estimated 9,300 “suspicionless” spot searches of travelers.
The agency has said the presence of officers with explosive detection dogs, radiation monitors and other devices will act as a deterrent in the nation’s busiest travel hubs.
But some remain wary of the expansion of the TSA’s powers and its potentially constitutional infringements.
“I guess if it didn’t feel like an invasion of my privacy, if I wasn’t being aggressively interrogated or if it wasn’t impeding my personal travel, I guess I would be okay with it,” said Zane.
A video shot in a train station in Savanahh, Georgia, in February apparently showed TSA agents screening passengers as they stepped off a train — as opposed to the more common pre-boarding screening procedures — in a move for which the agency later publicly apologized.
Others, however, said the TSA was a welcome sight outside of the airport terminal.
“I haven’t noticed it around here too much lately,” said Gabby Conklin. “I feel more safer.”
The TSA is planning to add an additional 12 VIPR teams across the country in 2012.
More on the DHS, TSA:
– Cupcake Deemed ‘Security Threat,’ Confiscated By TSA – TSA: Frosting Too ‘Gel-Like,’ Posed Risk
– TSA Screenings Aren’t Just For Airports Anymore
– Fascism We Can Believe In: Blackout On DHS Backscatter Vans And Body-Scanners
– TSA Full Body Scanner Radiation Safety Tests Were Rigged
– Police State: TSA Agents Search BABY As Possible Terrorist
– TSA Body Scanners Show Radiation Levels 10 Times Higher Than Expected
– Rep. David Simpson: If We Don’t Fight, TSA-Like Security Coming To ‘Sidewalks,’ ‘Football Games’
– Unconstitutional: After Touching Your Junk, TSA Now Wants To Scan And Harvest Your DNA
– Police State Update: TSA Pat Downs, Bag Searches AFTER Passengers Get Off Trains (Video)
– TSA Source: Undercover TSA Agent Successfully Smuggled A Gun Past Full-Body Scanners
– The TSA’s State-Mandated Molestation
– Inside TSA Body Scanners: How Terahertz Waves Tear Apart Human DNA
– Indian Ambassador To US Outraged Over ‘Humiliating’ TSA Search
– TSA Takes Full Control Of Passenger Watch Lists
– Review of the TSA X-ray backscatter body scanner safety report: hide your kids, hide your wife
– Dr. Russell Blaylock: Body Scanners More Dangerous Than Feds Admit
– TSA: Top US Government Officials Exempt From Screenings
– Airport Body Scanners: Why You should REJECT ‘Routine’ NON-Diagnostic X-ray
– Rep. Ron Paul on CNN: ‘We Don’t Solve Our Problems By Abusing The Rights Of American Citizens!’
– US: Full-Body Scanners Popping Up At Courthouses
– Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano Proposes Full-Body Scanners For Trains, Boats, Metro
– Rep. Ron Paul to TSA: Stop Irradiating Our Bodies and Fondling Our Children!
– US: The TSA Is Totally Out Of Control
– Passenger Becomes Internet Sensation For Telling US Airport Security ‘Don’t Touch My Junk’
– Wednesday, November 24, 2010 is NATIONAL OPT-OUT DAY!
– New Jersey Lawmakers Seek to Stop Airport Security Scans
– German Protesters Strip Down In Airport To Protest Full-Body Scanners
– World’s largest pilot union shuns full-body scanners, warning cites radiation risk
– TSA: 500 Full Body Scanners By The End of the Year, 2,000 Planned
– Pilot to TSA: ‘No Groping Me and No Naked Photos’
– How Body Scanner Terahertz Waves Can Tear Apart DNA
– The Full Body Scanner Invasion; New Scanners Break Child Porn Laws
– US prisoners forced to submit to radiation experiments for private foreign companies
– Full-Body Scanners Emitting ‘High-Energy’ Radiation Increase Cancer Risk
– TSA lies exposed: Full-body scanners do save and transmit images, secret documents reveal
– Israeli Airport Security Expert: Full-Body Scanners Are Waste of Money